Mada Hashiritai (a group of mostly people who host fighting game talk show)

Oshino Pepe (Sagat)

Sentos (Poison)

R (Guy)

Soushihan KSK (Abel)

Nekojita (Abel)

Iyasarerunenna

Yossan (Juri)

Younashi (Juri)

Aiai (Juri)

Waike (Juri)

Shin (Juri)

TOPANGA Fight Club (a group of TOPANGA students)

Murata (Yun)

Meso (Akuma)

Natsu (Yun)

Jones (Gouken)

Misaki Suzuki (Yang)

TOPANGA Charity Cup is the biggest community-organized fighting game tournament in Japan in term of number of well-known players. Since the entry fee goes to charity, people do it for the hype. Character duplicate is allowed, and 2 teams of 5 Juri already confirmed for this year. (Fingers crossed for whoever said Juri will never win a tournament!)

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Veteran voice actress Kana Ueda, who will be coming to Evo 2014, revealed today that she has enrolled in an English conversation school today, in order to be able to communicate better to the people at the (Evo 2014) venue.

Too bad, Ueda probably didn't know that there's an American BlazeBlue player who's teaching in Japan who could offer her some free lessons!

The latest episode of the only informative stream in the entire FGC (sadly, this's why this community sucks) UltraChen's First Attack teaches you about the basics of Ultra Street Fighter IV. This's a must-see and will be a good reference for beginners.

This's not entirely just her job, it's also a dream comes true for her. After Ueda got to know Daigo Umehara and friends, she showed some interest in attending Evo since then. She even mentioned about it in a radio show.

Nicknamed "Kana-sama", Ueda is a gamer herself. Although she doesn't play fighting games, she plays various games at above casual level. Like recently, she's into World of Tanks and already played 2,000 matches.

Video below is from a World of Tanks show on Sunday where Ueda appeared together with KSK. (Also a proof why she wins our most adorable smile award)

Monday, June 23, 2014

Rinna Mayfield (picture above)
- She's destribed as "whirlwind spirit user."
- Her class is Witch.
- She excels in Wind magic.
- She maintains good atmosphere in the party.
- She looks innocent, but is a wicked tongue older sister character.
- She looked after Kirika since she was a child so Kirika puts a lot of faith in her.
- "Uhuhuhu, so this party is Mr. Dragon's harem. I really like the feel of competing."
- She has a green penguin named Fromage as a companion.

Fromage
- She's a female penguin.
- She's a "Sound Spirit."
- She gives advices to the party.
- She's the mascot character of this game.
- Despite the title "Sound Emperor Penguin" her music is annoying.

2 new characters TBA
- 2 silhouettes are shown in the Famitsu news.
- It looks like they're the last two party members.
- Yuichi Nakamura will voice a male elf who uses Armonix spear.
- Miyuki Sawashiro will most likely voice the user of Armonix gun.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

CG-animated film Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary was released in Japan's theaters yesterday.

Saint Seiya is a legendary series from manga that was first published in 1986. This film is a remake of Sanctuary saga, with new storytelling, new character personalities, and redesigned saint armors (called Cloth). The serious atmosphere is toned down by some Hollywood-cartoony presentation. The armor transformation now looks more like Transformers. Nevertheless, this's a must-see for everyone. More trailers go here.

It's announced today that the download version of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for PS Vita on Japanese PS Store is getting huge price cut, from 4,095 yen (tax excluded) to 800 yen (tax included). All of its DLCs (14 packs) is also getting 50% price cut.

Furthermore, the game and all of its DLCs will be taken down from PS Store on June 25.

Yes. Buy it now for cheap or miss the chance to own this broken fighting game that was quite popular in 2012.

Famitsu revealed yesterday the first details of voice actors in PS3 RPG Shining Resonance. It also revealed that the legendary dragon protagonist also has a human form. In fact, the dragon form is for combat.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Some of you probably already know that ChocoBlanka is a band vocalist, but probably don't know how good she is.

This footage is from iPhone streaming yesterday when she went to karaoke with R (MC, commentator, Guy player) and Itabashi Zangief.

The song is Kouga Ninpou Chou (by Onmyouza) from Basilisk anime. She chose this song because it has the word "Ninpou" (ninja arts) which reminded her of Momochi (who is a descendant of a ninja, although Iga clan, not Kouga clan).

(It seems like she quit the band when she moved to Tokyo with Momochi in May.)

It's announced on Sunday that F2P online action RPG Phantasy Star Online 2 will get 6 new costumes of 6 characters from Shining Blade. The update which is planned for June 25 will also add weapons and voices of respective characters.

Costumes in "Shining Heroes" collaboration

Rage

Altina

Cerberus

Sakuya: Mode Crimson

Misty

Yukihime

This's not the first time for such collaboration. Shining Girls Festa costume batch was added in May 2013.

Phantasy Star Online 2 is available on PC and PS Vita. The English version is only available for South East Asia region. An offline edition of the game which also supports multiplayer, called Phantasy Star Nova, is planned for PS Vita.

Due to miscommunication in a news article, Capcom representative director was reported to say something that implies that Street Fighter V will feature pay-to-win. Now Capcom has issued a statement telling that "pay-to-buff a character" is not an option, and SF5 is not yet announced.

In 2012, Capcom released Street Fighter X Tekken which had DLC Gems to strengthen characters and also had DLC characters which were already on the disc.

There're also world-class Japanese players. The leader is Daigo Umehara (age 33). According to several people who are in the business "With the income from the sponsors, he should make at least over 20 million yen ($195.9k) a year."

Friday, June 6, 2014

It's revealed last night by the producer that the new character Nyotengu in Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate Arcade will introduce (fighting games) world's first "floor taunting" (after a knockdown, 0:49 in the video). However, this move is just for fun, she's still vulnerable to an attack.

Nyotengu will be available in location test starting today (June 6) in 5 selected game centers.

Monday, June 2, 2014

The 8th episode of No Game No Life anime that was aired last week has a reference to Daigo Umehara.

In the scene that shows the protagonist dominating leaderboards of various games, it appears that there's a player named "UMEBARA" (2nd place) and "LET'S GOJUSTIN!" (3rd place) on the top left of the screen. (The second Kanji in Umehara can be read either Hara or Bara.)

It's announced today that PS3 RPG Shining Resonance will be released on December 11. A standard edition, both physical and download, will be available at 8,222 yen (tax included). A limited edition, 16,800 yen, that comes with a 1/7 figure of heroine Kirika and her in-game swimsuit code is also planned.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

- Will be called "Isshuu Sengeki Hai"
- Will accept applications in mid June
- Will announce players in mid July
- Qualifier in Tokyo on August 23
- Qualifier in Osaka on August 30
- Finals in mid October

You probably already heard that Twitch will fly 3 Japanese players of people's choices to CEO 2014. This post is to ensure that you pick the right ones.

Our first pick is Yossan. Because Juri is cute. Pink/White Juri is a plus! (Just ignore the fact that he's now ranked 1st in Kanagawa prefecture and top 10 national in term of BP.)

Our second pick is Acqua. He plays Sagat, Yang, Cammy, so his chance of winning CEO is high. Why fly people who will get eliminated early? Most importantly, Acqua has a very good personality.

Our third pick is Akimo. This "Taito Station warrior" plays both Honda and Elena. You won't see a one trick pony here.

The reason why we don't pick Dunhill, KojiKOG, and Nishikin is they aren't cost-effective or simply because the above players look better. Koji also did badly in latest TOPANGA League B (4 win/11 loss), we don't think things will change even after T Hawk buff. Hype? Definitely. Performance? Highly questionable.